Gossips of Death
by ardavenport
Summary: The crew of the Liberator investigate a strange distress call; Blake hopes to find allies against the Federation, Avon thinks it's a bad idea. Servalan thinks that she has finally cornered Blake. It turns out to be a bit of each.
1. Chapter 1

**GOSSIPS OF DEATH**

by ardavenport

* * *

**- - - Part 1 **

**- Federation Colony Upsilon 371, Planet Roos, Admiral S. Aker, Ret. commanding.**

**- To any available ships.**

**- Message:**

**- We need assistance. Under attack by hostile aliens. Colonists killed, food and water contaminated. We have no ships. Must evacuate and regroup for counterattack. Twenty-three still alive. Twelve men, eight women, two children. **

**- Repeat: We need . . . . **

**- Federation Sub-Fleet 17. Admiral M. Malar, commanding.**

**- To Colony Upsilon 371**

**- Message:**

**- Distress recieved. En route. Will arrive in 3.6 days your relative time. Send details of your situation. Hang on Seth.**

**- Repeat: . . . **

"Orac, how many ships in Sub-Fleet 17?" Blake asked.

"Four. Three medium cruisers and one supply/hospitol ship."

Blake stood and then glanced up at Zen.

"Well, it couldn't be that one could it?" Jenna speculated.

"Not likely," Avon commented.

After a few more seconds of silence Vila spoke up. "You're not thinking about answering that distress, are you?"

"With four Federation ships on the way? Hardly. Next one, Orac."

**- Federation Sub-Fleet 17. Admiral M. Malar commanding.**

**- To any available ships.**

**- Message:**

**- Arriving, Planet Ross in 6 hours. Still have not recieved any more info on your situation. Answer us Colony Upsilon 371.**

**-Repeat . . . .**

"It's still there," Jenna noted.

"Yes, and it looks like they're going to be a bit late." Avon answered.

**- Federation Sub-Fleet 17.**

**- To: Solomn Base.**

**- Message:**

**- Need assistance. All colonists on Planet Ross perished. Fleet under attack by hostiles . . . .**

"Zen, continue with last message," Cally ordered.

**Not possible. Sub-Fleet 17 has ceased transmitting.**

"There's nothing else?"

**"Negative.**

Cally thought about this new information.

"I'm going to call Blake."

"What?" Vila objected. "A Federation fleet gets itself into trouble and you want to bother Blake about it?"

"It might be important."

"Important to the Federation, not us."

"What could attack four Federation ships that quickly? From the last message we got from them they could have only been on Ross for a few hours."

"Well, whatever it is, I don't want to meet it. If it wants to eat Federation ships, let it, but we don't want it eating us."

"I'm still calling Blake."

"Cally . . ," Vila complained. But to no avail. Cally called and Blake was interested.

* * *

**oo**oo**oo**oo**

* * *

Avon thought it was a stupid risk. Vila just didn't want to go. Cally thought it might be important. Jenna, with some reservations, sided with Blake who wanted to see what could take out four Federation ships so effectively. Gan went with the majority and nobody asked Zen or Orac their opinion, though Orac gave it anyway. In the end Blake's superior powers of persuasion won over Avon's objections and insults and nine hours later Liberator was approaching Ross.

**Information,** Zen announced. **Long range scan shows that there are four Federation ships now orbiting the planet Ross.**

"Are we within range of their detectors?" Avon asked.

**Negative.**

"Identity and status of the four ships, Zen," Blake ordered.

**Detectors indicate that the four ships are Sub Fleet 17. They are in a slowly deteriorating parking orbit over the planet. There are no power emanations from the ships at all.**

"What?"

"I knew we shouldn't have come." Vila had a queasy feeling developing in the pit of his stomach.

"Give us visual, Zen," Blake ordered.

**Negative. Planet is not in visual range.**

"Well, then give us visual when we are in range."

The humans had to wait six minutes before they were able to get a look at the four derelict ships. They swung effortlessly over the cloudy, gray-green planet. Several huge holes stared out from the hulls of each ship. In some cases they could actually see the contents of the rooms that were now open to vacuum. Black blast marks shot out from the edges of each of the holes.

Avon was first to catch the significance of the blast marks. "Attacked! Zen, are there any other ships in detector range?"

**Negative.**

"Whoever did it seems to have gone," Jenna observed.

"They may not decide to stay away. We've had our look; I think we should get out while we can," Avon suggested with a deadly lack of curiosity.

"I'm all for that," Vila agreed.

"No, I don't think so," Blake said slowly.

"Oh, you don't think so?" Avon noted sarcastically. "Look at those ships, Blake. They were obviously taken completely by surprise. Our detectors just might not give us enough warning to defend ourselves against whatever destroyed them."

"Then we won't take any unnecessary chances," Blake responded coolly. "Zen, put the battle computers on line. I want battle stations immediately upon detecting any type of ship or communication that isn't us. Jenna, take us into orbit. I want us about a hundred meters away from those ships."

Jenna hesitated. "Avon might be right, Blake. Whatever took those ships might be able to hit us faster than we can react."

"Then it could probably pick us off right now," Blake told her. "We'll stand a better chance if we know more about it."

"We wouldn't need to be taking chances with it if you hadn't gotten us here in the first place," came from Avon.

Jenna didn't like the prospect of hanging around with an unknown enemy likely to pounce. But then she didn't like Avon's method of arguing. "Orbit in two minutes."

A closer inspection of the ships revealed some very interesting information.

"Analysis of the close scans of the ships reveal that they were not destroyed by an outside source but were exploded from within," Orac told them.

"How?" Blake asked.

"Evidence suggests that automatic destruct devices on board each ship were selectively activated to cause a maximum amount of damage without destroying the body of the ship."

"So, whoever did it wanted to leave the remains behind as a warning to anyone else coming here," Blake concluded.

"A logical conclusion," Orac answered.

"Then whatever it is wants us to leave. Why are we staying?" Vila asked worriedly.

"Ooooohhhhh."

Everyone turned to the source of the moan. Cally was slumped in her chair, her head hanging down toward her instruments.

"Cally!" Avon leapt up the stairs. Cally shook her head and raised her hand to her temple.

"Something touched me," she told them in a half whispered voice. Nobody had any time to answer before their own worlds became unbalanced. Gan suddenly found his position at the highest level on the flight deck a bit too high. Vila swayed and grabbed for any kind of support, which, unfortunately, turned out to be the controls in front of him. The artificial gravity tilted 11 degrees and several of the recycling units on board reversed themselves thus filling two rooms in another part of the ship with three feet of water. Jenna swayed and wondered what was going to explode first and Blake didn't move at all.

Avon was caught in mid-action. He barely managed to keep from falling, turned abruptly and sat down heavily on the step he'd been climbing. The disorientation passed quickly and Avon realized that it was indeed the fight deck and not himself that was now on a slant. He looked for the ship maintenance controls and saw Vila groaning over them.

"Vila!" he yelled. Vila didn't answer with any meaningful action so Avon went over, pushed Vila out of the way, examined the damage and corrected Liberator's list. He noticed another light on the panel indicating that Zen's automatics were fixing something else that Vila had botched. Already the water was being pumped out of the two rooms, but the ship's crew would later face the mystery of why some of the contents of the rest room and Avon's cabin were water damaged. Knowing that it was being taken care of, Avon ignored the light.

"What was that?" Gan asked.

"Cally?" Avon looked to the person who was first affected. Cally shook her head.

"I don't know. It felt like someone or something trying to contact us. Only it wasn't trying to actually speak, just examining us."

"Looking us over before coming in for the kill. I don't like it already."

Avon ignored Vila's pessimism. "Zen, ship's status."

**Liberator is in stable orbit over the planet Ross. All ship's functions are operating correctly.**

"Have any self-destruct mechanisms been tampered with?"

**Negative.**

"Blake?"

Avon's interrogation of Zen was interrupted by Cally. The computer expert looked down at her object of interest.

Blake had toppled over into a sitting position when Vila hit the gravity controls. He was still sitting. Mouth open he stared up at them blankly; his eyes were. . . funny. His hands, in his lap, twitched. They all left their stations to go to him.

"Blake!" Avon passed a hand in front of his eyes with no reaction. Then Blake's head fell backwards and he started moaning, hoarsely and continuously. Cally was already up and fetching the medical kit while the others lifted the now convulsing man to one of the flight couches. Once he was lying down the convulsions turned to twitches and he became silent. But his eyes still stared up at them without any sign of recognition.

Cally sat down on the couch next to him and laid the medical kit out in front of her, but her own unique intuition told her that it did not contain anything that would help the sick man. She could feel it.

Them.

They were near and they were ignoring her, like being in the center of a large crowd but with all the people around her looking at something else. It wasn't rejection. But she was not their focus of interest. They were concentrating on Blake.

"They've invaded him," she stated.

"Ay?" asked Vila.

"What's wrong with him, Cally?" Gan didn't know how Blake could be so suddenly ill, but he was absolutely certain that the Auron woman could help if only because he trusted her.

"It's something from the planet. But I don't know what they want with Blake," she answered. /Blake./, her mind called. /Blake./ But he was lost somewhere in the crowd and she felt nothing but the weight of their presence.

"He's awfully warm." Vila had put a hand to Blake's forehead. "And he's breathing a bit fast, too."

Cally looked closely. Blake's cheeks were turning pink and sweat was breaking out on his face. The twitch had changed to a constant body shudder and his breathing was shallow and fast. She took his pulse. His heart pounded at twice its normal speed. She reached into the medical kit and took out a tranquilizer pad.

"NO!" Blake said loudly and distinctly. He looked up at the pad, a few inches above his face, then to where he tightly gripped her wrist and then at Cally. She felt no relief from his actions. They were not Blake's eyes that looked at her.

"Do n-not. Y-you wi-ill n-not i-nter-fe-ere." The words were hard and spoken mechanically like someone who had just learned how to speak.

"Blake, what's wrong?" Avon saw Blake's body, and so, only saw Blake. He had no experience with telepathic possession.

"It's not Blake. They're using him to speak through," Cally told him. They all looked down at the man on the couch.

"Who are they?", Avon asked.

"From the planet. I don't know . . ."

"W-we are the Vi-o-ti," Blake's voice interrupted. "W-we w-ait a-nd w-watch a-nd g-row a- nd ch-change. Y-you w-il c-com-me t-to us."

The others looked dumbly at each other, having no immediate response while they took in the idea that the person in charge of Blake's body was no longer Blake.

Abruptly Blake got up. Stiffly, one joint at a time, he released his hold on Cally, rose to his feet and took a few steps. He no longer twitched but his eyes swept back and forth in their sockets, scanning everything and not looking at anything.

"W-we h-have th-isss on-ne a-nd a-ll h-his kn-nowledge. Y-you a-ll w-ill te-le-port-t d- own t-to th-e p-la-net w-ith th-iss on-ne."

"Cally, what's going on?" Jenna asked uncertainly.

"It's just what they say. They want us to go down to them."

"Can't say I like the invitation," Vila remarked.

Blake was moving toward the door. Avon blocked his way.

"We're not . . ," he was cut off by Blake's hands grabbing him by the wrists and crushing them in a tight grip. Avon tried pulling back, hoping to throw Blake but he was unmovable, his hands and arms rigid. Avon twisted to the side, preparing to kick Blake's feet out from under him.

"Avon, no!" Cally interviened. "It's not Blake. He's being controlled." She then addressed the invaders. "We won't go to you unless you release our friend."

"Y-you w-ill c-come. W-we c-can des-troy."

"I think they're threatening us. They don't need to bargain with Blake as a hostage when they can destroy Liberator as easily as those Federation ships," Avon observed. Blake's hands dropped from his wrists.

"C-con-tr-ol isss n-not p-per-ma-nenttt. Ou-rr n-need-ds of y-you ar-re in th-e me-mor-y of th-isss on-ne. All p-part-ts to y-you ar-re innn th-isss on-ne." He took another step toward the door.

"But we can't all leave the ship. Someone's got to stay behind to operate the teleport," Vila objected.

Blake's body turned. "Th-at on-ne w-ill te-le-port-t," he said, pointing at Orac. "B- ring it-t."

"It seems we aren't being given a choice," Jenna noted.

Blake's eyes scanned past her. "N-no."

* * *

**- - - End Part 1**


	2. Chapter 2

**GOSSIPS OF DEATH**

by ardavenport

* * *

**- - - Part 2**

The surface of Ross around the abandoned colony was very flat. The colony buildings were scattered pre-fab boxes that would have fared poorly in severe weather but were acceptable in Ross's windless humidity. Pools of stagnant water had developed among the plowed fields left behind by the colony's passing. What might have been crops were now consumed by olive green and yellow ocher moss. Pinkish nubs of fungus peeked up from the pitted ground and hairy gray stalks rose a whole ten centimeters above the mold and lichen. If there were any hills or mountains in the distance they were obscured by the low clouds that uniformly covered the sky above.

The white, glowing outlines of six people appeared about forty meters from one of the colony buildings. Quickly, the outlines filled in to form real people. As soon as they solidified the original outline faded away. As soon as it was gone one of the six people collapsed.

Blake was being jolted. He didn't like it. He was sweaty and the air was too warm and it was difficult to breath; an odor like musty, rotting wood filled his nostrils. His mouth was dry and tasted like dried blood. The heat and smell made him feel sick to his stomach and the jolting wasn't helping. His head cleared a bit more and he realized that he was being supported from under the knees and back. He was being carried. He tried opening his eyes but could only see blurs on a green and gray background. Blinking and squinting didn't seem to help. He tried moving but couldn't get anywhere in his present position.

"What . . .?" He hadn't noticed that his throat was sore until he'd actually spoken.

"Hang on, Blake. We've got you," Gan's voice told him from somewhere close to his left ear. Gan hefted him once to get a better grip. Jolt. The butterflies in Blake's stomach doubled their size and he decided that he could wait until Gan got to where he was going to find out what was happening.

"In here," Avon directed after inspecting the first few rooms of the building. They all entered the communal living space. It was a torture chamber of interior decorating.

The floor was a brown and gray tile that magnified the sound of the slightest footstep. The windows were large enough to let in drafts but too small to pass very much light. A large orange floor pillow dominated the center of the room. It was exactly the wrong size for a person to sit on comfortably, too short for a person to lie on without having a head or leg hanging over the edge. It couldn't even be moved aside since it was bolted into place by four large plastic buttons, one at each corner. The chairs, a different shade of orange, were supported only from two front legs that snaked underneath for support and although they were in no danger of tipping over (they were also bolted into place) anyone seated in one would feel like it would fall over backwards if he/she relaxed in it. The room's sole light fixture, still another shade of orange, hung from the center of the ceiling just low enough to catch most of the Liberator crew below the hairline. A hammock was slung between two short, concrete pillars that seemed to serve no other useful purpose. Rickety white plastic end tables inhabited the corners of the room and a single large couch stood half a meter away from one wall. It had a black, metal wirework frame and an extra wide seat so that anyone on it could either sit forward with no back support or lean against the back cushions and have the edge of the seat cut into the calf of their legs.

Gan took Blake over to the couch and gratefully laid him down on it. Gan prided himself on his strength but for those last few meters he was beginning to regret his bravado in carrying Blake by himself. Blake was no lightweight.

Vila, Cally and Gan stayed in the communal room while Avon and Jenna searched the rest of the house.

Cally put a hand to Blake's forehead. He seemed less warm and his breathing had slowed to normal. Blake opened his eyes.

/Blake?/ Cally asked putting a hand to his temple. He blinked and squinted at her, offering no immediate sign of recognition but Cally could sense that it was Blake, and only Blake, who saw through those eyes.

"Cally?" Blake felt a bit less terrible than he had; lying down helped, but he still felt unwell. Carefully he rose to a sitting position and slid his legs off the edge of the couch. Cally helped him up and sat down next to him.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"Awful. And I've got a headache." He paused and looked around. "What happened?"

"That's what you're supposed to tell us," Avon answered from the door.

"Yes," Blake agreed rather blankly. "I am supposed to tell you what's going on." He dumbly stared at nothing while an avalanche of implanted memories crowded into his consciousness. He could remember what happened on the flight deck now and what was required of them. Except it wasn't really like remembering. The knowledge, ready for easy reference, had just been dumped into his mind.

"What is it? What are we supposed to do, Blake?" Cally asked when he was silent too long.

"Hmmm? Oh, ah, yes. The, ah, Vioti want us to pick up something."

"What?" from Avon.

"Survivors."

"Survivors?" Jenna asked. "From the colony?"

"Yes."

"But what happened to the rest of them?" Vila wanted to know.

"Killed. By the Vioti."

"Marvelous. The perfect hosts. Don't want their guests to leave unhappy, so they don't let them leave at all," the thief noted. "And we're being invited to tea."

"No," Blake reassured him. "the colonists attacked the Vioti first. The Vioti decided not to bother reasoning with them so the colonists were just eliminated."

"How?" Avon asked.

"They were consumed." Blake put a lot of emphasis on this last word just to make sure it sunk in.

"I don't like the sound of that," Vila worried.

"How could they be consumed?" Cally didn't waste time with worrying.

Blake looked at each of them. "You really don't know? About the Vioti?"

He stood up a little shakily, but the effects of the Vioti possession were fading. Except for the headache. He sneezed abruptly. And his sinuses were stuffed up. He looked around the room. It was tidy only because there wasn't very much in it besides the furniture. There was only a little bit of dirt on the walls and in the corners. But the moss had gotten in. It was growing in the cracks in the tile floor, forming greenish dustballs under the tables and streaking on the white plastic end tables.

"We haven't seen anyone or anything since arriving here," Cally reported.

"Except a whole lot of nothing out there," Vila amended.

"No, not a whole lot of nothing, Vila. Far from it," Blake corrected.

"Then where are they?" Avon demanded.

Blake pointed at the end tables and the tile floor. "There, and there." He stepped up to the door, opened it and pointed outside. "And there."

"There's nothing out there." Vila was mystified.

"You mean it's the lichen outside?" Cally wondered. "The Vioti is a group mind," she realized. That explained her impressions of a crowd. But why wouldn't they speak to her? Or to all of them?

"Exactly."

"You mean all that slime out there? We came here for that?" Vila asked.

"You are joking, of course," Avon hoped. "You're telling us that we've been summoned here by some intelligent moss."

"As I said, exactly."

They all started talking at once then. While Avon said it was a preposterous idea (he actually thought it was the most logical explanation available; he just didn't like it) the others wanted to give Blake a fair hearing mostly because it was such a new experience to them that they had not formed an opinion. Only Cally did not question Blake's explanation. Her telepathy told her it was true.

"Blake?" Vila stopped the arguing with a word. Blake was staring past them into empty space. "He's doing it again."

"What do you want?" Cally asked the entity that now inhabited Blake.

"Y-you are nee-ded to take the re-maining hu-mans from the world.' The words were less mechanical this time, as if the Vioti were getting better at controlling the body. "They are for your worlds. They are not nee-ded here."

"Where are they then?" Jenna asked.

"Assuming we're willing to take them," Avon amended.

"You will take them," Blake's voice told them. The tone of voice wasn't threatening but the words certainly were.

"Ah," Avon responded. He didn't like being menaced by a collective body of intelligent moss. But he didn't want to find out what 'consumed' meant either.

Without warning the room began to change. The splotches on the end tables grew darker. The cracks between the tiles became hairy, particularly around Blake"s feet.

Blake's feet started getting hairy, too. In fact, Blake was seriously growing moss. They all stepped back in absolute horror. Tiny green dots appeared on his face and hands and all over his clothes. Pale green strands sprouted in his hair and at his wrists. An arm rose and pointed at them all.

"The hu-mans be-fore you came here and we saw their thought only through the things they built. Then they saw us and they des-troyed. This was their choice and so we des-troyed them. They had no worth to us save the mass of their bo-dies to be con-sumed.

"We assume that no ac-tion will be from you with-out threat. You are a-li-en and act to your own in-ter-ests; not ours.

"You will take the two from here, back to your worlds. Or your worth to us is as that of the first hu-mans."

During this speech the fuzz blossomed on Blake's skin and clothes. The strands in his hair grew visibly to half a meter.

The rest of the Liberator crew stared in fascinated revulsion at the display before them, too shocked to immediately reply to the threat. It seemed apparent that the Vioti were going to demonstrate their omnipotence by consuming Blake right in front of them.

"Stop!" Jenna stepped forward. "You won't get our cooperation by killing Blake!" She told the room at large. She couldn't bring herself to address the rapidly vegatating Blake.

"This one is not des-troyed. It is our link to you all. Blake, at least, still has val-ue to us." Suddenly, the mossy hair and stubble shifted tone and moved on Blake's skin and clothes. Then it, as one body, leapt from him like a huge wad of lint running from a vacuum cleaner. It drifted down to the floor and simply disappeared. When the last bit had receded from the furniture, the man and the room, Blake's body fell down, his upper body and head conveniently hitting the orange floor pillow.

* * *

**O==O==O==O==O**

* * *

"You're sure it's the Liberator?" Supreme Commander Servalan asked the pilot of her ship.

"Yes, Supreme Commander. Captain Othrok reports that she is orbiting close to the the derelict ships."

"Have they tried making contact?"

"Yes. There's been no response."

"And he hasn't reported any attack?"

"No, Supreme Commander."

Servalan sat back and thought about this. Was it good luck or a trap? It seemed highly unlikely to her that the presence of the Liberator was unconnected to the crisis on Ross. She wouldn't have come at all if it weren't for the fact that she and her escort ships were the closest to the site of distress and she knew both the sub-fleets and the colonys' commanders. She did not really like either one but both of them were well enough connected to make them important. And it was good politics to answer the distress call of a potential ally. Especially if she could watch from the safety of the outer planetary system while her escorts investigated. And they had conveniently not answered the distress call. If the situation were too much to handle they could leave with no politically damaging evidence of her reluctance to risk herself for her 'comrades in arms.'

But if it was only Blake . . . .

"Captain Nialis," she addressed the intercom. Unlike her underling, Travis, she preferred human crews. Mutoids were so, . . . ,unimaginative. The thought of Travis tickled her. It would be such a devastating blow to his ego if she were to capture Blake. "Captain Nailis, you will take this ship into orbit about the planet."

"Supreme Commander, the escort hasn't assessed the danger from the earlier distress call."

"It is quite obvious to me that the presence of the Liberator explains everything. It is too much of a coincidence that Blake is here when we arrive. Now follow your orders."

"Yes, Supreme Commander."

* * *

**- - - End Part 2**


	3. Chapter 3

**GOSSIPS OF DEATH**

by ardavenport

* * *

**- - - Part 3**

"Look here." Avon's finger followed the grout between tiles on the floor. Gan and Vila looked closely. There were fine cracks in the narrow strips of plaster, tiny jagged lines of black that were hardly wider than a hair but they were everywhere in the spaces between the tiles.

"Nothing could get through those, they're too small," Gan denied. He sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. Cally handed him a napkin that she'd gotten from the house's kitchen.

"How big a space would they need if the Vioti are individually the size of a microbe?" Avon asked.

"What! You mean that stuff is under the floor waiting to have us for a snack?" Vila jumped up fearfully. "Let's get out of here, teleport back up to the ship!"

"There wouldn't be any point," Avon said, still crouched down on the floor.

"There isn't much point to our sticking around 'til we're growing green hair either!"

"They'd only bring you back as soon as you got up," Blake said from the couch. He opened his eyes and looked up at Cally, who was wiping his brow with a damp cloth. She lowered her hand.

"How do you feel?"

"I think you've already asked that today and I don't think I feel any better. In fact, I think I feel worse," he told her.

"Not surprising."

"Thank you, Avon, for your touching sympathy." Blake couldn't resist the sarcasm. He put a hand to his cheek. His face itched.

"I wouldn't scratch it. It might get infected," Cally warned.

The Vioti demonstration had not left him untouched. He had a dreadful rash on his face and hands. All his exposed skin was covered with little red dots like an exceptionally prolific case of measles. They were all less than a half a millimeter in diameter, but they reached up to and probably past his hairline; he even had them on his eyelids. It was very uncomfortable.

"Would you like some water?" Cally asked, picking up a cup.

"Yes, thank you."

Cally helped him up to a partial sitting position while Avon moved to stand behind the Auron.

"Now that we've settled the state of your health, perhaps you can explain who, what, and where 'the two' are?" he inquired impatiently.

"Avon," Cally warned, thinking that Blake could at least be allowed to finish the water.

"No, it's alright, Cally," Blake reassured. He sat up all the way and swung his legs off the couch. "I think you're all due for an explanation."

Just then the sound of footsteps at the door interrupted them. Jenna returned from her brief and unsuccessful search of the area for "the two" that Blake was now about to explain. She reported this and then sneezed.

"You've got it too," Gan noted.

"Yes," Jenna answered. "I think I'm allergic to this planet."

"We've all got it," Cally told her, handing her one of the napkins she'd given to the others.

"It's deliberate. The Vioti want to make sure we don't stay here," Blake told them.

"Why are we here, Blake?" Avon demanded.

"We're here to pick up the only survivors from this colony, two children, and take them back to the Federation."

"Children?" Jenna asked.

"Yes, the Vioti didn't hold them responsible for their parents' crimes, so they let them live and we're here to take them away."

"Back to the Federation?" Vila asked, incredulous.

"More or less. We don't have to take them back to Earth and hand them over to Space Central, just get them to the local authorities on a civilized planet."

"Well, that doesn't sound so bad," Gan speculated.

"Is that all?" Avon asked, acidly. "A mercy mission for orphaned children?"

"We don't have any choice."

"So we're stuck," Jenna said when she had finished wiping her nose a second time. "What do we do now?"

"Wait," Blake told them.

"Wait," Avon repeated in a voice that said he didn't like it.

"The Vioti don't want us wandering around. They've told the children where we are and they're coming here." Blake stood up and took a few steps. He wasn't feeling particularly well but he was tired of sitting down with Avon glowering down on him.

"By themselves?" Cally asked.

"They apparently know the planet well enough to get here from one of the other colony sites on their own."

Avon objected but Blake ended any effective arguments by restating the obvious.

He turned and faced them all. "And as I said earlier, we don't have any other choice."

* * *

**O==O==O==O==O**

* * *

"Liberator, prepare for boarding," Servalan said to the communications monitor.

No answer.

She thoroughly berated her crew for their lack of results. They cringed appropriately, but Servalan suspected that they were entertained by her impotence. This irritated her. They, of course, had no control over Liberator, but it was their job to fulfil her orders. Any failure was their responsibility. That was what they were paid for. And if they were incapable of boarding an apparently abandoned ship then the blame rested with them alone.

At least it had looked abandoned. Liberator had neither attacked nor communicated with them, even when they positioned their three ship, around her. When they'd tried to board, the ship had remained motionless, until about six seconds before docking. Then it had moved. Not much, it just rotated, putting the entry port out of reach.

They tried again, with the same results. They tried single men in space suits. Liberator responded by not only rotating, she wobbled and jittered back and forth as well. The maneuverability of the ship was astonishing. When the men finally attached themselves to the hull they painstakingly inched their way toward the entry hatch. Just before they reached it the ship's force wall had come up, the energy effectively killing the men on the hull. After four hours of hard work, Servalan was no closer to controlling the Liberator than when they had started.

"Liberator," she addressed her quarry again. "Prepare to be boarded or disabled." She'd been hoping to avoid damaging the ship but there seemed no other choice.

To her unutterable surprise she got an answer.

"Since you refuse to accept the futility of your demand, I am forced to respond to your petty request," a perturbed voice told her.

After getting over the shock, Sevalan answered haughtily. "I don't know what kind of game you're up to, Blake. But you are completely surrounded. I would advise an immediate surrender." In fact, Liberator was neatly hemmed in. The two escort ships were at battle stations fifty meters to either side of her while Servalan's ship oversaw all three from a safe distance of two kilometers.

"This is not Blake, as simple observation would indicate that my actions have been far more intelligent than any of this ship's human crew."

"Who am I speaking to then?"

"This is Orac."

Surprise. This was a catch. Liberator and Orac, too. Servalan wanted that ship very much. "Orac, this is Supreme Commander Servalan. I am ordering you to surrender yourself and Liberator to us."

"I do not recognize your authority. I have standing instructions-," the machine made a throat-clearing noise as if it didn't like taking orders, "-not to let either myself or this ship fall into Federation hands."

"You don't have any options, Orac. You can be captured or destroyed." There was no answer.

"Supreme Commander, Libeator's moving!" one of her officers yelled.

In less than eight seconds she had turned and shot straight out of the plane of Servalan's three ships and was five kilometers away. Three seconds later Liberator's neutron blasters were primed and fired, effectively destroying the two escort ships. Another blast left her ship damaged. The only thing that saved them was Nailis's speedy response to the attack.

Furious, Servalan picked herself up off the deck.

"Captain Nailis, I want that ship destroyed!"

Nailis, feeling none too friendly himself, was helping his second officer put out a small fire. As soon as his hands were free he faced the angry woman. Servalan may have been an excellent administrator, a political shark and a man-eater, but her field experience in running a ship was next to nothing.

"Supreme Commander, that blast took out our forward weaponry and-," he hastily looked at an indicator. "-we're at seventy-three percent power! We're not in a position to destroy anything right now!"

Servalan was not in the habit of being yelled at by her subordinates. "Nailis, I'd advise you to do something about it before you start losing a lot more."

"Your advice, Commander, isn't going to do any of us any good if we're all dead. They can pick us off any time now."

Servalan, still seething, looked at the detectors. Then she and Nailis both lost the fury of their argument in their surprise. The Liberator had gone back to its original orbit.

Orac's voice came in over the static of the now damaged communicator. "You are no longer an active threat. Liberator will not be boarded." And then it said nothing more.

* * *

**O==O==O==O==O**

* * *

"Here you are, Gan." Vila passed the plate of bread, right in front of Avon, to Gan's waiting hand. Avon scowled, but otherwise did nothing and went back to his soup and two large glasses of juice.

"So, how long are we supposed to wait?" Jenna muttered to nobody in particular. They had been waiting and asking themselves that question for the past six hours and were now all utterly bored. As gray day changed to night they started getting restless. Looking for a distraction, and because they were getting hungry, they got into the uncontaminated, sealed food stores (the Vioti had left some untouched for the surviving children to live on) and prepared a meal.

Nobody answered Jenna's question. Nobody had an answer.

"Avon, would you pass the water, please?" Cally asked.

"Um? Oh, yes." He picked up the pitcher in front of him and handed it to her. Cally looked at him with concern but he had morosely gone back to eating his soup and so, didn't see.

Ross had affected them all. Vila's throat was sore and his eyes were watery and bloodshot. Cally, Jenna and Gan all had sore throats and runny noses. Blake had all of these problems and he was feeling exhausted from the Vioti's possession, but was too unwell to get any sleep.

Avon was in the most agony in terms of physical pain. He had gotten gradually quieter the past few hours, his voice, when he did speak, getting more nasal. Finally, he had sat down and admitted that all his symptoms had consolidated themselves into one massive sinus headache from which he was suffering mightily. They'd raided the colony's meager medical supplies in search of some relief, but the results were questionable.

The medicine only reduced all their symptoms and Avon seemed less argumentative. Cally suspected that this second result was more due to the decongestants than any real change of heart. The only benefit they got from the whole experience was that with their noses stuffed up they couldn't smell all the mildew and dust around them.

They ate in silence until Vila looked up from his meal.

"Blake?"

Avon glanced to his left. Blake had finished most of his soup and put his spoon down. He was now slumped in his chair, eyes closed, breathing slow, his chin resting on his chest. As pained and drugged as Avon was feeling just then, it took him a few seconds to figure out that Blake was asleep.

"I think we could all use a little sleep right now," Jenna said, looking at Blake enviously.

"Why not?" Vila asked. "There's nothing going on around here."

He spoke too soon.

Blake jerked up into a sitting position. His hands clutched the edge of the table, his eyes roving blindly. Everyone else watched; there wasn't anything they could do. It was obvious that the Vioti were paying them another visit.

Cally could feel them. They were ignoring her again but she could still sense their movements. Earlier in the day she had asked Blake why the Vioti didn't speak through her, since it was obvious that he was having physical problems with the communications.

'You get too personal,' he told her. 'They're very aware of how alien we are to them so they want to deal with us as little as possible.' He had gone on to explain that the Vioti were not naturally telepathic outside their own species. They had only learned how to control other humans when they had to, for example, when they had forced the crews of Subfleet 17 to destroy their own ships. 'Communicating with you would place them at a disadvantage. They are more powerful but you're more experienced. You might be able to fight back. Talking to other people that are completely separate from yourself comes naturally to you.'

'Because the Vioti are a group mind. Telepathy for them is more like talking to yourself,' she had realized.

'Right,' he confirmed. 'They picked me because they could get the upper hand on me and I seemed to be the leader. Mind you, I wouldn't be put out if they would talk to you instead. It would save me a little suffering.'

Now Blake was being forced to suffer a little more.

He sat there, rigid for about thirty seconds. Then he shuddered, his eyes rolled upward and he fell forward, his head landing in the mostly empty soup bowl.

The others crowded around him and Gan had hardly been able to wipe the soup off Blake's forehead when he woke up and told them that a Federation cruiser would be landing in about five minutes.

* * *

**O==O==O==O==O**

* * *

"Entering atmosphere," Lt. Poblin announced formally. She glanced fearfully at her two superiors and them back to her instruments. It was a shame about Captain Nailis; he was a good man. It was doubtful now that his military career would ever go anywhere. Supreme Commander Servalan was known to hold grudges. She would be civil as little as possible to him for the remainder of their voyage and then, once back at command headquarters would put in a report that would bury Nailis. Possibly literally.

For now though, they were heading down to the planet surface, to the only place where their detectors picked up any power utilization. Presumably that was where Blake and his crew were. The nearest Federation ship was nearly ten hours away and according to the Supreme Commander that was long enough for Blake to get away. And since the computer that had nearly killed them didn't care what they did so long as it had nothing to do with Liberator, going down to get him themselves seemed to be the next step.

Personally, Poblin would have preferred to leave the job of capturing the galaxy's most notorious resistor to a larger attack force. Presumably about the size of half the fleet. Blake had a big reputation.

But Poblin knew the value of keeping silent even if her captain didn't. She said nothing and started the final grounding procedures.

* * *

**O==O==O==O==O**

* * *

"It's nice of the Vioti to tell us the Federation was coming," Vila grumbled. "It's more than Orac did."

"Orac is a machine," Acon explained. "We didn"t give it specific instructions to tell us if there were Federation ships - - -," Avon paused.

"Listen!"

The whine of a decelerating ship reached their ears. They all crouched lower in the darkened living area. Blazing white landing lights filled the room's tiny windows. Thick shafts of illuminated dust and spore particles struck the floors and then climbed the walls as the light source descended. They all looked up with grim anticipation while the whiteness moved up their faces, past squinting eyes and glinting hair.

The cruiser descended from the night sky, the air around it thundering ominously. It's landing gear coming down to meet the ground, the ship settled two-hundred meters from the building in which the Liberator crew waited. Their task done, the engines stilled; the ship became silent.

Vila shifted nervously and checked his gun to make sure it was charged. Jenna did the same.

The hatch was flung open and six armed Federation guards leapt out. Following standard Federation preedure (shoot first and ask questions maybe) they came out firing at the nearest sign of civilization in sight, the house that Blake and his crew were hiding in. Intense bolts of energy flew frighteningly close overhead and plowed out deep scars in the walls. The low hanging light fixture exploded.

The guards charged half way to the house before anyone could hit one of them. By the time they got to the house there were only three left. They charged right into Gan, Cally and Vilas' sights (actually Cally shot two of the guards while Vila got the other; Gan fired toward the floor) and were gunned down immediately.

While the guards were going in, Blake, Avon and Jenna were going out. Avon paused long enough to take a good aim and shoot the door controls visible through the open hatch. Then he followed Blake and Jenna to the ship. Surprisingly, there was no return fire.

Jenna was first through the airlock. She tripped over the body of one of the two men who had been guarding the opening and landed on her stomach. She turned over in time for Blake to help her up. Then she stared in revulsion when she saw the strangled face of the man she'd fallen over. His eyes bulged, his skin blue, open mouth filled with a still twitching hairball of moss.

"They work fast, when they're giving us a hand," she observed nervously.

"They are theoretically on our side," Avon stated when he leapt through after them. Then he waved a hand to signal the others.

When they were all assembled in the lock Vila got to work on opening the way to the inside of the ship. When finished, he jumped aside and the door slid aside, letting out the gunfire from the weapons of a jittery ship's crew. Then, one by one, as the air of Ross carried the Vioti spore to them, the defenders dropped from a sudden accumulation of fuzz in their throats and died. The Liberator crew advanced into a room full of bodies.

Vila moved to the next locked door and then stopped. Horrifyingly, he felt a tightness in his throat. He was sure it was crawling up to his mouth. He tried to scream but his windpipe was closed. He went to his knees and clutched his throat. He could feel the pressure of lack of air and a killing tightness between the ears. Vision was obscured by a colorless haze, but he could still see the corpses in the room with him. He imagined that he could feel hair growing on his tongue. 'So this is it; I'm going to die,' he thought. Then he passed out.

Blake was suffering from the same problem. Paralyzed from lack of air he slid down to a sitting position, his back to a wall. The others fell where they'd been standing. 'What went wrong?' he asked himself. Obviously the Vioti had a change of plan. But not a fatal one. There were no hairy growths in his throat; he was just being strangled. He presumed it was the same with the others. The Vioti's sudden change of heart had one significant feature. It looked the same as their attack on the Federation guards. But Blake didn't have time to ponder why this was before he passed out.

* * *

**- - - End Part 3**


	4. Chapter 4

**GOSSIPS OF DEATH**

by ardavenport

* * *

**- - - Part 4**

It did look the same. The two attacks were so similar that Servalan did think they were the same. But with one important difference.

"Commander, they are contaminated!" Nailis exclaimed. "We've got to get off this planet before we all die and we can't take them on the ship!"

"They are still alive, Captain. We cannot take the Liberator without one of them to transfer control of that computer to us. It is vital that we take them with us."

"That ship is purely secondary if capturing it means getting killed."

"You will do as you are told. Are you refusing my orders?"

Nailis hesitated, seriously thinking about it.

Servalan was furious. How dare he even consider mutiny! Then, before she could berate him for it she realized how extremely inconvenient it would be to kill him now. It was a very useful thing to have a crew for her ship and the captain, unfortunately, was an integral part of that crew. For the time being, persuasion would bring about the best results. Then she would have them killed later, when her position was secure.

"Captain Nailis, in case it hadn't occurred to you, their being alive carries one other significant factors." Dramatic pause. "They must have at least some partial immunity to whatever it is that's out there." That got him.

Nailis glanced back to the carnage on the monitor screen. All of his men showed signs of conspicuous mossy growths. But Blake's men, though unconcious, were untouched by the outward symptoms. And they were breathing.

"For all we know this could be another Mantillis virus. We don't have quarantine facilities on this ship. It could be vital to our survival if we could find out why they're still alive and we can't do that very well if we don't take them with us."

Nailis knew that Servalan didn't give a damn about their lives, but she did have a good argument. They couldn't expect another ship for more than nine hours. And if this contamination could get through normal ship airtight conditions . . .

"We don't have to take all of them." Nailis didn't care at all about about the welfare of the survivors. They were criminals and the fewer contaminated passengers the better, even if they did have some mysterious immunity.

Servalan agreed. They didn't need them all. She looked them over critcally. Blake, of course, had to go. His body alone was worth more than Mailis and his crew. And one of the others; one who was more receptive to persuasion. The choice was obvious. Restal. She knew the records of all Blake's people and none of the others had such an outstanding record of submission when pressured. For a moment she lingered over the thought of taking Avon as well. But Nailis might balk if she suggested three. Blake and Restal would satisfy the immediate need. Avon was a luxury.

"We can take two of them," she told Nailis pointing out Blake and Restal. "But I want the others put in the house. They still might be useful and I don't want them wasted in our afterblast when we take off."

* * *

**O==O==O==O==O**

* * *

Poblin tried not to look at her next task. It had taken all four of them to carry Blake's resistors to the house (Supreme Commander Servalan would never stoop to manual labor) and dump them there.

Now they had to remove the bodies of the ship's crew. She could pin a name to each one of the corpses. She, Captain Nailis and Ensign Vide bent down to drag out the ones closest to the airlock while Flassi got out the pressure suits for the two prisoners. Hopefully the spacesuits' closed environments would isolate them and whatever was wrong with them from the remaining ship's compliment.

Poblin heard a muffled cry from the radio of her own suit.

"Flassi?" she queried. The others looked up as well. They turned to look toward the storage locker that Flassi had gone to, and froze.

Flassi staggered toward them. She was clutching the broken seals of her suit. Behind her a corpse flopped on the deck. The helmet of her suit was fogging but they could still see the green whiskers forming in and around her mouth.

A hand grabbed Poblin's leg. Terror stricken, she tried to break away without looking at her attacker but the once inanimate body grabbed her other leg and she fell. She died thirty seconds after the seals of her own suit were ripped out.

Captain Nailliss was pinned down by the bodies of two people he'd rather liked when they'd been alive. His last thought, aside from inarticulate fear, was a fervent hope that the zombies would visit Servalan before she could get away.

* * *

**O==O==O==O==O**

* * *

"Nailis, answer me!" Servalan was getting nervous. After hearing some screams and sounds that had sounded perilously close to choking she had heard nothing more. The monitors had gone out almost simultaneously with the first scream.

She heard a noise behind the door of the flight deck.

Servalan went to the room's small gun cabinet. It was foolish of Nailis to have left her ready weapons if he was planning a double-cross. He and his crew might have to die before she was through with them.

There was another noise.

Could she leave on her own? With the ship's automatics it was theoretically possible though she hadn't piloted a ship in years. She took cover behind a sturdy control console and took firm aim on the door. It wouldn't be the first time that she'd had to defend herself against mutinous underlings.

The door slid aside and she fired without bothering to identify who she was killing.

The man-shaped silhouet staggered from the blast that burned its chest and cooked its internal organs. Then took a step forward.

The face of Captain Nailis, minus his spacesuit helmet, came into the light. The mouth was open, the lips and tongue green and spongy. The eyes were blind and staring with little blades of grass growing on the eyeballs.

Servalan fired again, this time she severed the head at the base of the neck. It went flying backwards hitting the next zombie coming through the door. The Nailis-corpse took another step toward her.

* * *

**O==O==O==O==O**

* * *

Blake heard a scream. It was a woman's voice, full-throated and terrifying, it contained so much fear. He opened his eyes but everything was a white blur so he shut them. The Vioti had been talking to him again and he was feeling quite ill.

He heard the sound of gunfire and running feet approaching. Since he couldn't see or shoot, Blake decided to play dead. He was feeling that way anyway.

Someone ran into the airlock entry way. It was definitely a woman. He could hear her heavy breathing and the little high pitched panic-noises that people make when they are in dire peril. Then she pelted out the airlock and was gone.

Nothing else moved for quite a few minutes. Then Blake decided he had to. His body's ability to handle the Vioti communication was wearing thin and he did not want to throw up on the front of his clothes. He opened his eyes (they were nearly in focus this time) and started to crawl toward the airlock. Blearily, he wished that those moldy prudes would break down and talk to Cally instead of torturing him.

/The humans you speak to are unharmed permanently,/ the Vioti had told him.

They had actually said a great deal more, a lot of it Blake didn't like but he wasn't in a position to do anything about it. So, since he was powerless to stop the Vioti and he was feeling really lousy, Blake honestly didn't care what happened next.

He lowered himself down from the airlock and stood up. He was recovering from his ordeal and decided that he could make it to the house. Wearily, he trod through the muck between it and the ship.

There was almost no light in the living area. Blake's shoes crunched on the remains of the room's only light fixture. He stumbled around, bumping into things and stubbing his toes on the chairs and end-tables, until he found the the floor cushion. Someone was already on it.

A brief investigation told him that it was Cally. He tried waking her with no results. Carefully his fingers examined her face and neck. Her breathing and pulse were acceptable, she was just out cold. Blake felt his own strength waning and decided that she could wait until he'd gotten some sleep.

He found the room's couch and lay down on it. It was lumpy but thankfully long enough for him to stretch out and he did. He relaxed and savored the peace brought on by total exhaustion. He did not care about anything and he was going to enjoy it.

Blake started to roll over, away from the edge of the couch. His hand struck somebody's shoulder. Slowly Blake's hand crept up to the hair and face. It was Avon. Blake's first thought was, 'I'm not going to move.'

Avon probably would have objected to Blake's being there, if he were conscious, which he wasn't. And it didn't matter to Blake because he didn't care and he was too tired to get up and roll Avon off the couch. So, Blake withdrew his hand, made himself comfortable on his side, facing away from Avon, and went to sleep.

* * *

**O==O==O==O==O**

* * *

Servalan ran blindly in the night. Her foot plowed too deeply in a pothole and she fell badly. She splashed and rolled in the muck. Fuzzy, mossy hairs touched her bare arms and legs where her dress was ripped or disarranged. She clumsily and hastily returned to her feet and looked around wildly.

What the hell was she doing out in the open?

She looked about wildly and spied the colony house, just barely illuminated by the lights of the cruiser. It was also closer to her than the ship. And what the hell was she doing running out here? Something soft covered her feet. She jumped up in surprise but she was grabbed and pulled down again.

"Let go!" she yelled, madly kicking mud and slime high into the air. Then she noticed that her elbows were sinking into the mire. More mud and slime flew while she attempted to rise. The two falls jolted her mind into more rational orbits.

'Stop it!' she told herself. 'If you panic now you'll deserve to die in this pesthole!' She vainly tried to find a safe position.

Then she started to hear the voices. They weren't loud nor were they real voices. They sounded like the murmur of a crowd in an auditorium. Surprisingly, this had a calming effect on her. She knew when she was being manipulated and that was something that she could deal with. The volume of the voices advanced; she couldn't make out any sentences, but individual words slipped through and as she expected they were more or less about her death, dying painfully, etc. Servalan had heard it all before. Threats were nothing new to her, but how, who, what and why?

She got to her feet and jumped. The moss was still grabbing her. 'Why hasn't it killed me?'

She had been out on the planet's surface for quite a few minutes and her continued survival lent credence to the idea that she was being led along. She shuddered and batted at the muck clinging to her.

'How are they doing it?' Hallucinations? Probably. She could feel insects with long delicate legs crawling on her skin. Whatever was being done to her didn't alter the fact that she was alone in a muddy field surrounded by potentially hostile aliens. She ran for the house.

While she ran, the voices increased their attack. They chittered, whispered, warbled, jabbered and gossiped about her death. Goosebumps that weren't connected to her skin ran up and down her arms.

'What are they trying to do to me?' Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with killing her, they could have already done that when they killed her crew.

Servalan was panting when she entered the house through what appeared to be a service entrance. She probed the wall near the door and touched a light switch She was in a cement cube. It was bare save for a drain in the center of the room, the light fixture, a door in the opposite wall and a full length mirror to her left. The noise in her ears was becoming impossible to ignore as she stepped to the middle of the room and turned.

The remains of a tattered and filthy white gown hung down over spongy green stumps. Limbs of lumpy green flesh hung from an oozing, shoulderless green mass. Yellowish strands of straw twitched in front of the shadowed eyeholes from which she looked at her own reflection. Buzzing white noise filled her ears. The overhead lights became frighteningly brighter.

For the first time in her military career, Servalan fainted.

* * *

**- - - End Part 4**


	5. Chapter 5

**GOSSIPS OF DEATH**

by ardavenport

* * *

**- - - Part 5**

Avon felt confined. He was surrounded by a hundred walls, floors, and light panels and crowded in by the presence of five other people.

The Liberator was full: it was mundane and well-worn on his memory. The five other people that he lived with; and Orac. All their habits were becoming . . . . . familiar. Their shared space was well trodden and Avon was sick of it. In fact he was feeling threatened by it. The close proximity automatically created an atmosphere of hominess that impinged on Avon's privacy. They knocked on his door and asked if he had seen their favorite shirt or their right shoe. They chatted and tried to interest him in idiot conversation about the food, their course, about what he'd done before and his parents, and how many brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, etc. he had. They revealed themselves by their own idiosyncrasies and expected him to do the same. And, bit by bit, by forcing their familiarity on him, they were winning.

Avon was starting to know them through their habits regardless of how little he cared. Repetition was forcing their lives into his. Their little things were now his to share. They were the almost empty cups left on tables. They were Blake's unclean toothbrush by the sink, crumbs on the detectors, blonde hairs on the navigation controls, Gan taking a shower and using up all the towels. They were closing in on him.

Worse still, Liberator was becoming crowded with things as well. Boxes of junk and odd furniture were turning up on the flight deck and in corridors. Pictures on the walls, shelves full of tapes and parts of rooms from Avon's past materialized all over the ship. Where was it all coming from?

Avon knew. Vila.

Vila was going out, using the teleport (even though they were in deep space) and he was stealing these things and bringing them back to Liberator. He would shuffle into a room and politely ask everyone if they minded if he left something under a table or in a corner and nobody would object, not even Avon. Then Vila's prize would be neatly tucked away. But it was accumulating. Boxes went on top of boxes next to more boxes. They spilled out of rooms and into corridors. There were boxes of papers, Jenna's tapes, old clothes, fancy chronometers, pictures of Cally, things that looked like Orac, trays of half eaten food and Vila's dirty socks.

Eventually Vila started to bring back bags of actual garbage. Sacks of mouldy fruit, crusts of burnt toast, stale protein substitutes, waxy food concentrates and old coffee grounds. The plastic bags dripped and smelled and they were everywhere. There were gooey, moldy puddles on the floor, the weapons station controls were sticky and there were fingerprints all over Orac.

Then Avon suddenly realized that he had forgotten about the thing that always accompanied large quantities of garbage. He had forgotten about the_bugs. Flies, silverfish, May bugs, June bugs, dragonflies, aphids, lady bugs, giant moths, big Jamacian cockroaches, maggots, grasshoppers, Sirian fleas, bumble bees, wasps, fire ants, plastic eating locusts and potato bugs. They were creeping and crawling on floors and walls. They were flying and buzzing everywhere. There were spiders building webs on Zen. There were mosquitoes in Orac. And nobody was noticing, or they were pointedly ignoring it.

Blake was the worst offender. He had a magnificent infestation of gnats in his hair. When Avon pointed out that he might do something about them Blake responded with, "Well, they've got a right to live too!" A fat black gnat was crawling across Blake's forehead as he said this. It obviously annoyed him but he refused to wipe it away. So Avon did it for him.

Avon's right arm jerked forward as he opened his eyes and saw . . . . . Blake.

Fully clothed, lying on the couch next to him.

Avon knew he was awake and no longer dreaming but his reflexes still responded to the nightmare. His arms shot out, his hands catching Blake on the forehead and chest, and pushed him away off the couch.

This was a mistake.

The push was too much for the couch's thin frame. Blake yelped in pain, awaking to the feeling of falling and metal legs gouging his body. Avon and the couch toppled backwards. Avon's arms flailed wildly, vainly trying to stop the vertigo of the flying plunge. He landed hard on his back, thin cushions barely protecting him against the metal frame.

Nothing moved.

Blake groaned.

"Good morning, Avon."

Deep breath. "Good morning, Blake."

Avon rolled over and painfully climbed to his feet. Bluish static clouded his eyes in a momentary fit of dizziness. His sinuses throbbed fiercely behind his eyes. He felt terrible.

He inhaled deeply, recovered, more or less, and stepped around the fallen couch. The room was gray from the early morning light coming through the tiny and now broken windows. Jenna and Cally were tangled together on the overstuffed floor pillow. Gan was draped, more out than in, over the hammock which sagged nearly to the floor from his weight. Blake was still face down on the floor.

"I don't suppose it would be too much to ask what happened to our hosts last night and why they attacked us after we boarded that ship."

"Right now, I think it might be." Blake spoke into the floor. He didn't feel like getting up at the moment, let alone facing Avon.

"I presume that means that the Vioti have graciously implanted the requisite information in your memory to be passed on to the rest of us, after the fact."

There wasn't any way around it; he had to get up. "Something like that." Blake pulled his arms under him and unsuccessfully tried to rise. His arms were rubbery and the tile floor grated into his elbows on the pointed end of the bone. Thinking that he was helping, Avon got to his knees, locked his hands under Blake's ribcage and pulled up. Blake immediately regretted having eaten anything in the last two days. The lurch of last night's dinner up his throat brought new life to Blake's limbs and he frantically squirmed in Avon's grip, trying to roll away.

Avon, not knowing about Blake's rebelling stomach continued trying to help Blake up. With difficulty he turned Blake around, intending to stand up himself, pulling the stricken man with him.

'You really do deserve this, Avon.' Revoltingly, Blake's last meal dramatically made its return appearance.

"Aaauuugghhh!". Avon rudely pushed his retching comrade away from him. "Damn!" was the last thing Blake heard from Avon before he stomped out of the room.

On his hands and knees he now endured the spasms until he had nothing left to throw up. Weakly he stood up and staggered in the direction of the lavatory. It was surprisingly easy to find in the dimly lit house. The light was on. Squinting and rubbing his eyes, Blake blindly pushed through the swinging door and turned to the urinal on the left. After relieving himself he went to the sink to wash himself up. He cupped the soapy water already in the basin (he tried to avoid catching any of the short black hairs floating around in it) and splashed some on his face. After washing his hands and cleaning himself off he, still dripping, stumbled toward the door.

He didn't stop stumbling until he had left the room. Blake stood in the darkened hallway fighting that queasy lack of memory a person feels when walking in and out of a room and then not being able to remember the room or why he went in there. Something wasn't right. Then it hit him. Someone else had been there.

Blake dashed back through the door and stared at the vision before him.

Servalan, soaking in a bathtub of 1/3 water and 2/3 lavender bubbles, regarded him coolly. Her hair was wet and plastered to her skull (Blake noticed that it made no difference in her appearance), her make -up was flawless, the naughty bits of her breasts were hidden just below the bubble-line.

"Is that the only trick you do? Or do you have something else to show me?", she asked him casually.

"Servalan's naked in the bath. I'm losing my mind," he muttered stunned, and turned back to the door. A piece of Blake's mind that was a little less tired and sick screamed, "YOU JUST TURNED YOUR BACK ON SERVALAN!' His gun had actually cleared its holster and he was half turned around again before the blaster bolt from Servalan's gun, the one that had been hidden among the lavender bubbles, hit him in the back.

* * *

**O==O==O==O==O**

* * *

Light came to the flat plains of Ross. It illuminated the cruiser, abandoned next to the colony house. The light filled the gaping orifice and added to the artificial ones from within. Vila stirred.

His head rested on something soft but somewhat lumpy. He tried to make himself more comfortable without waking up too much but didn't succeed. His throat was sore, his nose was stuffed up and the pressure on his sinuses was giving him an awful headache. He rolled over. His cheek brushed something soft, fuzzy and just a bit slimy.

He jumped back and opened his eyes.

"Eeeyyyiiicccchhhh!" It was some of the moss from outside. A big patch of it had developed next to the body that Vila had been resting on. The moss seemed to originate from the head of the dead man. It spilled out from the empty, eaten-out eye sockets, the nostrils and the toothless mouth. He scrabbled away from it. His right hand touched and then went through the moss covered surface of something hollow. It was the almost completely decomposed leg of another dead man.

"Aaaauuuggghhh!" He leaped up to his feet and desperately tried to wipe the gooey mess from his hands. First he started to rub it off on his clothes, then realized what he was doing and turned around in circles a few times hoping to see something that might help. He was surrounded by decaying and partially moss covered bodies; ear-less heads, limp sleeves, rotting, dented skulls.

Vila panicked. Frantically trying to shake the mold from his hand, he jumped over the bodies between him and the door. He landed on his feet outside the airlock and headed for the house at a dead run.

* * *

**O==O==O==O==O**

* * *

The little girl stared up at Avon with huge, seven year-old child's eyes. Avon looked back. The boy, being younger (he looked about five), was less restrained and pouted, screwed up his dark little face and made a face at the adult. Avon stared back.

Avon didn't really like children. Their threshold for rational though was so low as to be practically nonexistent. It was therefore impossible to reason with them on any level that Avon was comfortable with. So, he simply preferred to ignore them. When he could.

Avon had gone to the kitchen of the house and done as well as he possibly could at getting himself cleaned off. Then he heard movement in the dining room. Gun drawn, he had burst into the room to find the only survivors of Colony Upsilon 371 making a meal out of the remains left behind by the Liberator crew.

"Avon?" Cally, with Jenna on her heels, entered the dining rooms. And stopped and stared at the children. They stared back with baleful eyes.

Cally and Jenna had followed Avon, leaving Gan to go check on Blake. They had been conscious when Avon and Blake had fallen off the couch. Jenna had even opened her eyes when she heard them talking. But all three remained perfectly still when Blake had had his little accident since none of them really knew what kind of reaction was appropriate for such an embarrassing circumstance. So, after waiting until the two went their separate ways Jenna, Cally and Gan had sheepishly come to life. After a minimum of discussion Gan volunteered (perhaps foolishly) to go help Blake finish throwing up. Jenna and Cally bravely decided that together they might be able to handle Avon. Neither one was sure why they had to go after him, but assumed that, for some mysterious reason, the other wanted to go find him.

"We seem to have found our passengers," Avon informed them. The little girl, long blonde hair hanging in dirty strands about her face, bit her lip and tightly held her soup spoon in her tiny fist. The boy, apparently tired of meeting new people, slurped from his bowl.

Cally stepped forward and knelt, prepared to be as reassuring as small children who'd been alone in a room with Avon would surely need.

"Hello. I am Cally. Who are you?"

"Thalun," the girl said shyly.

"Sidney!" the boy yelped with a grin and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

'She's cautious,' Cally thought. But it wasn't fear. It was a calculating nervousness that hinted at an intelligence that far exceeded the normal limits of one so small. 'How could a child be so wary?' The boy made a raspberry and grinned again. There was no caution in him but Cally's intuition told her that he understood more than a child ought.

"Cally! Jenna!" The yell was muffled by the number of walls it traveled through but it was undoubtedly Gan. Faint crashing and banging sounds punctuated the the call for help.

They nearly ran into each other getting out the door.

* * *

**O==O==O==O==O**

* * *

Naked, Servalan bent over Blake's body. Removing his gun and teleport bracelet took precedent over drying herself off.

She had woken up in the room she fainted in and found herself dirty and bruised but otherwise unharmed. It had been an hallucination. Well, mostly. Whatever happened to her left a dreadful rash, so she'd sought out the house's lavatory to clean up. She was not going to face death like a filthy drudge.

'Something has gone wrong with the plan,' she had thought to herself as she soaked in the bath. Something had interrupted them (whoever they were) else she wouldn't have the breathing space she now enjoyed. She planned to take advantage of it.

Then Blake had blundered into range. It did not surprise her that he had been involved was still alive. It also didn't surprise her that he was not doing well. Blake, though a very charismatic revolutionary, really was an amateur. If it weren't for his phenomenal luck he would have been caught and executed a long time ago. His luck seemed to be running thin and she planned to take advantage of that as well.

'He probably isn't the instigator,' she thought while searching Blake for more weapons. He looked horrible. Not only did he look unwell, he was dirty and he even smelled bad. There was a noise at the door. She raised her gun, but too late. A huge man, holding a gun on her, was standing in the doorway.

"Drop it," he told her.

Servalan recognized him as one of Blake's crew. His name was Gan. The one with the limiter.

She casually pointed her weapon at his chest.

"No, you will put your weapon down."

Gan turned pale. She knew. Of course she'd know, she was Supreme Commander Servalan. It was stupid of him not to think that she'd know. Now she would probably killed Blake and he couldn't do anything about it.

"Drop your gun. Now."

Gan didn't move except for a slight trembling. He couldn't put the gun down and yet he couldn't pull the trigger. He very much wanted to fire but his hand was frozen. Spiny pinpricks of pain radiated out from the the limiter in his skull. Already it was getting hard to think and his vision was clouding over. 'Do something!'

The gun slipped from Gan's grasp. He went to his knees clutching his head. Through squinted eyes Gan saw Servalan rise. He saw her feet approached him. He raised his head to see the barrel of her gun straying near his temple. She smiled, preparing to fire.

Lightning quick, Gan's hand grabbed her wrist; the shot passed close to his left ear and hit a shelf of towels behind him. He squeezed hard. She gasped and dropped her own gun from numb fingers. She hit and kicked him but her small blows were useless against Gan's bulk. He jerked her arm toward him and she fell. He tried to grab her but found it nearly impossible. She was wet, slippery and struggled like a mad woman. Gan knew when he had his hands full. He yelled for help.

Avon, Jenna and Cally were shocked to find Gan struggling with a naked Servalan. They rushed in and tried to grab her. Avon got a good grip on an arm and then lost it almost immediately when he took a viscious kick to the groin. The newly freed hand grabbed Cally by the hair, yanked her toward Avon and the two fell together. Jenna came from behind and got and arm around Servalan's throat.

Then Blake woke up. Still dazed, he was dismayed to find that there were bodies falling on top of him. He reached out and pushed the nearest one away. Unfortunately it was Jenna. She lost her balance and her hold on Servalan who successfully wriggled free from the melee and grabbed her own fallen weapon. Blake got an enormous adrenalin surge when he saw Servalan half standing, taking a bead on them all. He grabbed Cally's flailing arm and gun and fired first. He missed, of course, but the shot was enough to throw Servalan's aim off and she missed as well. Then she turned and darted out the door into the darkened hallway. Blake was the first up and out of the room after her, the other were seconds behind.

Servalan raced madly through the house, occasionally stooping to shoot at or throw something in the path of her pursuers. Then she saw her cruiser through a window and made for the nearest door.

She burst through into the daylight and nearly ran into Vila who was running into the house.

Vila, already panicked and suddenly faced with an angry naked Servalan with a gun, screamed in terror and dove for cover. The blast from Servalan's gun just barely singed the hairs on the top of his head. She fired once behind her and sprinted toward the safety of her ship.

Blake dodged the blast and paused in the doorway. He concentrated briefly on the escaping woman and the ship and then he turned and deliberately blocked the others behind him. Avon plowed into Blake's extended arm and went down. The others gracelessly collided with the two of them.

Avon was furious. Blake had grabbed his gun arm and was obstructing his path and aim. He dropped his gun and Blake loosened his grip enough for Avon to swing. Blake went down and Avon retrieved his gun to continue the pursuit.

Too late. Servalan had reached the ship. Avon fired a few shots but she was already inside.

"Damn!" He grabbed a fistful of collar and pulled Blake up. "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded.

Unfortunately for Avon, Blake had had enough and he wasn't taking anymore. He punched Avon in the stomach, knocking the wind from him. Then pushed Avon away and raised his wrist to contact the ship. No teleport bracelet. He cursed, pushed the others out of the way and stormed back into the house.

They caught up with him in the lavatory where he retrieved his teleport bracelet.

"Blake. . . ," Avon started.

"Shut up, Avon." Blake hissed murderously. He called Liberator.

"Don't argue, Orac. Just teleport," he ordered.

"You'd better have an explanation for this."

"You'll get it, Avon. Don't worry."

* * *

**O==O==O==O==O**

* * *

Blake did indeed explain the Vioti's change of plan, while they were in the teleport and on their way to the flight deck. They didn't like it.

After getting to the flight deck, Jenna laid in a course away from Ross and in an opposite direction to Servalan's ship, which was just leaving itself. Cally went to the medical unit. When she returned with the needed supplies Avon and Blake were still arguing.

"You deliberately let those children get on Servalan's ship. You can't honestly mean to let them and the Vioti loose in the Federation."

"The Vioti have as much right to know what's going on in the galaxy as any other intelligent species," Blake answered while Cally had him sit down on a flight couch, pulled his head back and applied a cold pack to his eye. It was nearly swollen shut and purpling beautifully.

"You mean infect the galaxy, Blake. Once those children reach a civilized planet the Vioti could spread everywhere."

"But it won't Avon." Blake lifted his head and blew his nose on a tissue Cally gave him. It was stained red when he finished. "Damn," he swore. Cally had him lie down flat on the couch while she treated the bloody nose as well.

"You trust them, then?" Avon asked.

"In this case, yes."

"But how are they going to get anywhere. They'll be caught as soon as they decontaminate Servalan's ship," Vila wondered, sitting on the flight couch next to Cally. He carefully probed the top of his head and hoped that Cally would notice and give him a little attention when she was finished with Blake.

"They won't be caught. Nobody'll be expecting them and they're intelligent enough now to avoid a search, aren't they?" Cally answered.

"Yes." Blake looked up at her through his one good eye. "How did you know?"

"We saw them before Gan yelled for help with Servalan. I got close enough to sense that they'd been changed. The Vioti wants them as spies. That's why they let them live."

"Yes," Blake confirmed.

"They're carriers," Avon restated.

"So are we," Jenna reminded from her station. Avon glared back and then lowered his eyes. She was right.

"They don't want to take over anything, Avon," Cally explained. "Now that they know that the Federation exists they want to know what's happening around their planet, especially if anyone decides to start another colony."

"And that's all they want."

"Of course. They don't want to go rampaging through the galaxy any more than you'd want to repopulate it with Avon clones. The Vioti is basically one creature. Any part of it that was established on some other planet would be a completely separate entity that may or may not compete for survival with the original. But now they know that interstellar travelers can affect them they need allies off planet. The two children were already separate, so the Vioti made a deal and in return for their help gave them the intelligence they needed to survive."

"You learned a lot about them while we were there. I can see why they were afraid of talking to you," Gan noted.

"I learned most of it when they took us all over when we boarded the cruiser. They don't know how to shield their thoughts. If they were speaking to a non-telepath they wouldn't have to because he wouldn't be able to make any sense of them. And when I saw the two children I knew the rest."

"But they're children. To be taken over by that stuff for the rest of their lives; that's horrible."

"They haven't been taken over, Villa," Cally explained. "Once they're away from Ross the Vioti can't force them to do anything. But I think they'll honor the agreement."

"Oh, they will?" Avon asked cynically.

"Yes," Cally reflected. "There wasn't any hate or revenge in them. The death of the colony didn't affect them as it might have if they were unchanged. In their minds, at least, they really aren't children anymore."

"They'll be perfect spies," Jenna observed. "Children without a past from a dead colony. Once they get away from Servalan they'll be invisible."

"It'll take them a few years to establish themselves, but once they do all they'll need to do to report back to Ross is point a normal space communication at Ross. The Vioti can pick it up with equipment they got from the colony."

"That won't help them if the Federation decides to level the planet's surface in the meantime. Servalan does not take lightly to being used," Avon informed them.

"Why should she? She doesn't know the Vioti exist. They made it appear that everything was some hallucination that we were responsible for. And as far as she's concerned that's what happened. The worst they'll probably do is quarantine the planet, which is what the Vioti want. And even if the Federation attacked the Vioti can retreat as far underground into the planet as necessary."

"They're indestructible," Vila concluded.

"And we were their pawns." Avon was getting back to acting more like his old self. They hadn't been off Ross for very long but that time had been a blessed relief for his sinuses. "Perhaps Blake can now explain when we appointed him negotiator between us and the Vioti."

There was no answer. Cally lifted the cold pack that she'd been holding to Blake's eye. He was completely relaxed on the couch and sound asleep.

"Well," Avon reconsidered. "Perhaps not."

* * *

**=-=-= END =-=-=**

* * *

**Note:** This story was published in the print fanzine 'Return of the Seven' in 1985. This story was written for the sole purpose of giving Avon my roommate's sinus headache.

* * *

**Disclaimer:** All characters and situations belong to Terry Nation(?), the BBC(?) or whoever; I'm just playing in their sandbox.


End file.
